Broad City

I made a choice a few years ago to not be political online. There are plenty of reasons for that which I won’t go into, but every once in a while I highlight shows and films on the streaming guide I think are important. This week I chose Chasing Coral which premiered at Sundance, and is about the attempt to visually capture coral bleaching, and Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. I haven’t seen Bigelow’s films because I’m not very into war as a genre, but she’s also the only female director to have won the Oscar for Best Directing. That surprises me, but also it doesn’t. Aditi Mittal is one of the first women to perform stand-up comedy in India, another thing I didn’t know.

As for my other choices, Broad City and Game of Thrones are two of my favourite shows. Broad City deserves a highlight for that fantastic DMV episode (I renewed my licence last week, which you can now do at the post office. It’s the Australian equivalent of making an appointment), and there’s no season like GoT season. My podcasts are coming back, and I’m figuring out how to deal with this strange book/show world we live in. I’m happy that A Storm of Spoilers has a separate section for production spoilers, and stopping the podcast early is going to be an exercise in self-control. At the time I’m writing, George hasn’t followed up on this possibly fortuitous Live Journal entry, so that’s something to watch. I’m also going to be keeping an eye on any possible #BlackThorn evidence. Let me know if you find anything.

I had a really weird day at work today; I was bitten by jumping jacks and had to get to the doctor, and then it took two hours to get home instead of the usual 45 minutes. Consequently I haven’t had much time to watch or read anything for a review. So I’m going to go through some of the television shows I’m excited to see that have just returned or are returning soon, and I’ll highlight some of my favourite panels that were held at the Television Critics’ Association Press Tour throughout the month.

As I hinted yesterday, there’s a large amount of television shows returning to Australia this week. Justified’s final season begins Wednesday January 21 on FX Australia, and the second season of Broad City is slightly delayed and begins on the same day. In addition, Olive Kitteridge, Girls and Looking all began on showcase. I have no idea how I’m going to watch all of these shows now that Jane the Virgin is also back on, given that they all seem to be on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s going to be an interesting time – I have begun to prefer the shorter seasons: Girls, Looking and Broad City are all half-hour shows with ten episodes each, Olive Kitteridge is a four part miniseries, and Justified is an hour long (plus whatever FX gives Graham Yost) thirteen episode season. Jane the Virgin has been given a full 22 episode season and a renewal for a second season, which means there’s slightly more commitment involved, but I’m getting used to it.

In other news, one of my favourite twice-yearly events is the Television Critics Association Press Tour, with one held in January and another held in July. All of the American television networks are invited and hold press conferences about the state of their network as well as panels for individual shows. There are some arguments that this particular form of promotion is outdated, but with the rise of cable television at the end of the 20th and original scripted programming on streaming services since 2013, the press tour has been a useful promotional platform for emerging networks and streaming services. One of the big things that happened during Press Tour is that SO MANY RELEASE DATES were announced. Here’s the schedule for April in the United States (I’ll find Australian release dates where they’re available).

Sunday 12th: Game of Thrones Season 5, Veep Season 4, Silicon Valley Season 2

Saturday 18th: Orphan Black Season 3

Sunday 26th: Penny Dreadful Season 2

That’s going to be a busy month, even if I don’t watch Penny Dreadful and I’m not particularly excited for Daredevil (I’m not a big fan of comic book shows).

I’m also quite lazy tonight, so here are some links to some of my favourite panels that were held during the tour (Thanks to Alan Sepinwall and Dan Fienberg over at Hitfix for live-blogging the panels).

Programming Note: I’m trying to figure out how to have a job, write job applications because I’m halfway through a six month contract, and review pop culture at the same time. I have a long weekend coming up, so I hope that I’ll be able to write a few drafts in that time.